Page:Guide to health.djvu/127

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CONTAGIOUS DISEASES: SMALL-POX
115

Bubonic Plague, with this difference that the poultice should be applied in this case to both sides of the chest. If there be no time to try the "Wet-Sheet-Pack", a thin poultice of mud should be applied to the head. Needless to say, here as in other cases, prevention is better than cure.

We are terribly afraid of cholera, as of plague, but in fact, it is much less fatal. Here the "Wet-Sheet-Pack", however, is of no effect, but the mud-poultice should be applied to the stomach, and where there is a tingling sensation, the affected part should be warmed with a bottle filled with warm water. The feet should be rubbed with mustard-oil, and the patient should be starved. Care should be taken to see that he does not get alarmed. If the motions are too frequent, the patient should not be repeatedly taken out of bed, but a flat shallow vessel should be placed underneath to receive the stools. If these precautions are taken in due time, there is little fear of danger. This disease generally breaks out in the hot season, when we generally eat all sorts of unripe and over-ripe fruits in immoderate quantities and in addition to our ordinary food. The water also that we drink during this season is often dirty, as the quantity of it in wells and tanks is small, and we take no trouble to boil or filter it. Then again, the stools of the patients being allowed